Hello therapists, activists, practitioners of all healing kinds!
I am reaching out because I’m really in need of community support right now, in order to continue with my path to becoming a therapist. My life circumstances have taken an unpredictable turn and financing myself enough to complete my final year of somatic therapy training is proving too much.
The Goal
I am hoping to raise enough to pay for the final year of my somatic therapy training next year, plus (hopefully) the ability to pay for supervision and therapy sessions necessary to becoming qualified. I’ve put the figure at £3,500. This will include my course cost: £1,800 (I am on a bursary so it’s cheaper than usual). It will also cover some supervision and therapy sessions to allow me to qualify and develop as a practitioner.
Initially I felt it would be unrealistic to expect I could reach this kind of goal but in calculating, I realised that if everyone on my course, plus a few other sent the equivalent cost of a therapy session (£65), I’d almost get there. Obviously I’m not expecting everyone to contribute, but if each person passes it onto their own therapeutic communities, the reach will be further and who knows what’s possible!
The Reasons I'm Struggling to Cover this Myself
It’s taken a lot to create this call out. It has required me to be vulnerable about my needs and my financial situation, in a way that society teaches us not to; I also share and allude to personal things that I feel are necessary in order for you to fully understand my situation. It’s hard, but all in all, this is calling on me to practice my politics - to embody that our struggles are not individual, they are communal, and we should respond communally. This process has humbled me to the fact that though I’m very capable of ranting about class, disability, inequality and redistribution on behalf of a great anonymous ‘other’, I struggle to advocate for myself and my own needs in this regard. I’ve felt a lot of shame in writing this, I’ve questioned whether to share as much as I do. But in weighing up the social discomfort vs the consequences of not asking for help, I know this is the only route!
There are a multiple reasons I am struggling to pay for this myself:
- I don’t have money privilege. My background is working class, and I don’t have the infrastructure around me that a lot of middle class trainee therapists have. My family can’t support me and haven’t been able to in the past. Money has always been a struggle for me in a way that it isn’t for most people around me who are on a similar career path.
- I am currently unable to work more than 3 days a week due to disability and the work I am currently in is poorly paid. My salary is £15,000 a year, living in London. Last year my salary was £8,000. My disability is unpredictable and its impact changes over time. It also worsens with life stressors, meaning often the more pressure I have to work and earn, the less capable I become.
- My circumstances have changed massively in the last couple of months. Previously, I had the external help of a partner with a home which really softened the impact of my class and my disability on my material life. But I no longer have these things and am now going it alone, which I realise leaves me in a very bad financial situation.
Community Support Bolsters Us All
Anyone who is in the therapeutic community will know that the field is largely white, middle class and able bodied. I have been an anomaly in this as a working class disabled person, but I’ve got to this point by swinging on the coat tails of people around me (waheee!) and accessing, briefly, privileges that were not mine to keep. And the reality is, I am about to fall at the last hurdle if I can’t do a little more coattail-swinging to get me over the finish line.
There’s a reason that people in my demographic do not become therapists and this is it: it’s financial and it’s structural. But I want to get there, because I also believe that if the community has more working class people, more disabled people (plus those excluded that I don’t represent - more people of colour, more trans people, more socially excluded people in general), the field will become truly healing, truly accessible in a way that it currently is not. Because it is the socially excluded voices that are able to represent more of the harm that is happening in our society, and that have the will, passion and understanding of how to shift things.
I believe in my vision as a therapist and I am so determined to get there. It is a vision that prioritises accessibility, low income working, community work and the intersection between therapy and activism. So any assistance that you are able to give to me at this early stage in the journey, I know will multiply outwards once I reach more solid ground.
Lastly...
I have started this crowdfunder as a last resort. The past few months I have tried different means of creating a financial reality for myself that could be workable. I’ve gone into types of work that were dangerous for me and which I have now stopped out of care and love for myself. I want to stay as whole and healthy as I can while still pursuing what I feel is my purpose. So this crowdfunder is my next hope for plugging the holes in my super leaky bucket so I can begin to fill up again!
I don’t want to put this crowdfunder up on social media, but I would love for it to be shared within our community of therapists. I want to seek the resource from inside our community, because I believe it is there. I’d love if everyone could share this with their networks. It would mean the world for me to reach the target!
As I said earlier, if everyone reading gave the cost of one therapy session, I'd be able to reach my goal pretty quickly (£65). But anything you can give is super welcome!